First Days of School

Monday, Feb 2nd—Today was the first day of school, and Heather took me at about 8:00. WOW. I have 31 students in my class and 10 more that come over for math and reading. The day went really well with only minor challenges. The students all wear uniforms—all schools public and private wear them over here. That was a big shock when they all arrived in the morning; I hadn’t quite expected that. The day was a lot of expectation-setting and establishing the classroom atmosphere. The students are relatively well behaved and highly respect Brett, my cooperating teacher, so I don’t think we are going to have too many difficulties with discipline.
It was unbelieveably hot here though. It was about 110 degree and humid. Our classroom’s air conditioning is broken and has no windows that open. Therefore, by 2:00PM it was a heat box, so we just let the students sit down and watch a movie. One of their subjects is viewing, so part of the time we did actually analyze the camera shots used in the movie. We’ve got a smartboard in the room, which is absolutely fantastic. It was like a huge movie screen for the kids. (I know there are more academic ways to use it, but for today it was great!)
Brett took me home again at about 5:00. When I got home, I took a dip in the pool and then got ready for the evening. After a very nice dinner, Heather, Katie and I went to the Camelot cinemas, which is an outdoor movie theater. We saw Vicky Christina Barcelona while sitting under the stars and sharing a bottle of wine. It was incredible. That however did lead to a long night. We got home at about midnight, and then I had about and hour of planning to do, so that put me into bed at around 1AM.

Tuesday—For the second day of school and still being quite warm, the day was relatively good. The biggest struggle that I think we are going to have is an autistic boy in our class. He is defiant and hard to engage. His aid is fabulous, but she’s not in the room all the time, and of course, he seems to act up when she’s away for a while. I taught most of the day today, with the exception of math and art. I introduced the spelling unit,
Tonight, I just stayed around home. I ended up walking down to the beach right when Brett dropped me off, and I fell asleep for about 45 minutes. It was a wonderful nap. I walked home and lounged around until dinner. After dinner, Heather and I watched Muriel’s Wedding, which is a Western Australian movie. (She has a whole list of movies and books that I need to read while I’m here—although I don’t think I’m going to get them all done.)

Wednesday—Today at school, I was almost the main teacher. We do fitness every morning for 15 minutes, and today’s game was soccer. It’s a FABULOUS way to start the day, because Brett, Ashleigh and I just watch the games to make sure no one gets hurt. We then had the kids take their math test and work on some sudoku problems. The day was extremely productive. We had about an hour of uninterrupted time for planning. Therefore, tonight, I really don’t have a whole lot to do. Our DOTT time (duties other than teaching) started today, so we had an hour of time that we didn’t get the past two days. It was awfully nice.
I taught spelling, a unit about flags, and a unit about biographies and interviewing. Brett is trying to let me have the class completely by next week. Since the school deputy (like the assistant principal) will be filling in for Brett on Mondays, Brett would like me to be the full teacher before this coming Monday, so that the deputy will not have to do much for class.
Tonight, I just stayed home and got some work done. I watched two Australian soap operas, Neighbors and Home and Away. Both are typical soaps, but only 30 minutes long. Tomorrow will be another day, and I believe that I’m going to go out tomorrow evening.